Arin Houser
Arin Houser "the Great" is a self-proclaimed knight who travels the kingdom with his two companions, Lilly and Fredrick, in order to rescue those in need. Contrary to his title, Arin is more of a talker than a fighter, and his arrogant attitude and lack of combat experience usually results in his missions going awry in some form or fashion. He often spends his free time gloating about his success, his fame, and his money, as he comes from a noble family. His companions secretly despise him and his attitude, and only stick around him for the money - Lilly because of a sick relative, Fredrick to simply enjoy himself. Despite his arrogance, Arin is a very emotional and empathetic individual who truly loves to help others and, unusually for someone of noble-birth, is very educated and serves as a vast library of knowledge, specializing in the history of the kingdom. After a humiliating defeat at some point in the story, Arin admits that he's a joke and that he thinks he's a horrible person. Ashur Everstone motivates him to make something great of himself, which leads Arin to join his guild. He offers to pay Lily and Fredrick a large sum of money for having to relieve them, but the two of them admit that they've grown fond of Arin and refuse his money. When Ashur's guild has talks about exposing the king and invading the palace, Arin admits that his lack of skill would only serve as a hindrance, and likely get himself and others killed. Instead, he offers to travel throughout the city and spread the rumors himself, and entice the citizens to leave the city so they don't become unnecessary casualties. He contacts Lilly and Fredrick for their assistance once again. His decision to ask for their help backfires, however, as Lilly had been forced to seek dishonorable methods of making money since her dismissal as Arin's traveling companion; she is forced into revealing their secret plans to one of the king's spies in exchange for a huge amount of money. This betrayal eventually results in the death of Ashur Everstone. When Arin was a young child, he met an old, dying peasant in the street and, after listening to some of his stories, began to feel bad for the man and began to visit him every day, give him scraps of food and water, and listen to him recount the stories of his youth. It was at this point that Arin started to understand the greed of the upper class and developed empathy towards others. The old man told tales of his time as a knight, how he cut down man after man and how him and his comrades would celebrate their victories with mountains of ale. He said that after single-handedly taking out an outpost of bandits and coming out with only a missing finger, his allies dubbed him "the Great". Eventually, the old man died of sickness, and Arin was destraught, using a stone in his backyard to mark the old man's grave. One of his biggest regrets in life is never asking the old man his name, and as often as he thinks of the man himself, he questions the world for his name. Because of his noble birth and upbringing, he was constantly surrounded by people with an arrogant worldview and lack of compassion for others, and Arin felt pressured into acting the same. As he grew older, he began to let the emotional side of him show, which turned off the children he grew up with, who saw him as weak for caring about those who were "beneath" him. Having been abandoned by the rich and despised by the poor, Arin spent the remainder of his youth in isolation, without a single friend. During this time, Arin thought about the old man daily, and decided he wanted to be a brave hero like him, thus starting his quest for fame, taking the old man's epithet of "the Great" in order to honor him and carry out his legacy, and also to inspire himself into becoming a respectable knight like he had been. In truth, Arin's employment of Lilly and Fredrick was a result of his loneliness. He hired them not because he needed or wanted assistance with his adventuring, as he states he would have hired a capable warrior to train him or do the work for him had that been the case, but instead, he hired them to be his friends. At some point in his adventuring, he met Ashur Everstone, who he had a lengthy discussion with about the state of the world. Because of Arin's desperation for friends, in his mind, this single conversation marked the start of a close friendship, something Ashur didn't reciprocate. Despite his outward intolerant attitude toward Arin, the discussion they had actually proved to Ashur that he was an honest, caring person, and he secretly began to respect him. After Arin joins Ashur's guild, the two of them develop a genuine friendship, and Arin becomes deeply depressed at his friends death, solely blaming himself and vowing to avenge him. Arin takes part in the final battle of the series, and before he is able to get his revenge on the person responsible for Ashur's death, his leg is severed and he has to be rushed out of battle by Lilly and Fredrick. Following the conclusion of the battle, Arin is forced to resign from active duty. Instead of letting himself become depressed over his physical state and inability to avenge his friend, he takes pride in the fact that he was part of the battle and that his allies were able to succeed where he did not, and spends his time travelling the kingdom with Lilly and Fredrick, singing songs and telling tales about the adventures he had with his companions, and making sure the legacy of Ashur Everstone lived on. Category:Characters Category:Major Characters Category:Males